WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Ryan Thornton Illinois Valley Central/Bradley

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Posted Jan. 26, 2014 at 4:57 PM

Posted Jan. 26, 2014 at 4:57 PM

HOW WE KNOW HIM: Thornton, a 2006 IVC graduate, was an all-state basketball player for the Grey Ghosts. During his senior season, he led the 2006 Class A runner-ups in scoring (17.4), while shooting 44 percent (117-for-267) on 3-pointers and 88 percent (80 of 91) at the free throw line.

The 6-foot-7 forward/guard left IVC as its fourth all-time leading scorer (1,249) and made a school-record 253 career 3-pointers. He was inducted into the IVC Athletics Hall of Fame on Dec. 17, 2011.

GOING TO STATE: Thornton along with four other senior starters — Chris Shindley, Tyler Anderson, Zach McAllister, and Joel Perez — led IVC to its first state finals in program history.

"I still remember the first state tournament I ever went to was the first state championship Manual ever won, sitting there with my dad," he said. "The players I watched at state were kind of like heroes of mine growing up."

In the 58-40 Class A quarterfinal win over Chicago North Lawndale, Thornton scored a career-high 30 points, hitting 7 of 12 3-pointers.

"I was able to get some open looks," he said. "When the first one went down, I just remember thinking to myself, 'If I get some more open looks, I'm going to keep putting them up."

The Ghosts, who finished 27-6, fell to Seneca, 47-44 in front of 11,502 fans at Carver Arena in state title game. Thornton made the all-tournament first team.

"If you want to be considered an elite high school basketball player, you have to at least get to Carver Arena," he said. "I set that as a goal. To play for a state championship, it was awesome."

IVC's coach, Jim Thornton, is also Ryan's father. The younger Thornton says he learned a lot from his dad.

"I really couldn't have asked for a better coach to play for," he said. "He really did a great job of getting everything of out of his players. His first state tournament was my first state tournament, so we got to experience that together."

COLLEGE DAYS: Thornton earned a scholarship to play at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. During his freshman year, he appeared in 27 games, averaged 2.7 points and made 20 of 66 3-point attempts. Following that season, he transferred to Bradley for the 2007-2008 season.

There he redshirted, but was able to improve his game under then-coach Jim Les.

"Really what I wanted to do was just work on my overall game every day," Thornton said. "It can be a tough job, because you're not playing in a game and you're not dressing. But you're going to practice every day and doing all the dirty work."

From there, he transferred to NAIA Illinois-Springfield and played three seasons with former Central standouts Jacob Motteler and DeAndre Miranda. In the 2008-2009 season, he played in 22 games off the bench and averaged 3.4 points and made 19 threes. The next season he led the team with 53 3-pointers, averaged 7.5 points and came off the bench in all 24 games.

Page 2 of 2 - During his redshirt senior season, Thornton suffered a major tear to labrum in his hip.

"I decided that it was my last year, I'm going to play every night as long as I'm not hurting the team," he said. "I decided I was going to play through the pain. Looking back at on it now, it probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I really just appreciate all the opportunities I got playing college basketball."

TODAY: Thornton, 26, recently graduated from Western Illinois with his masters degree in sports management. He works in the management training program for Enterprise.

Thornton spends his downtime golfing and has begun to play basketball again. He's on team in The Sunday Basketball League with former Bradley teammates Sam Singh and Brian Lavin and former Richwoods all-stater Justin Dehm.

"I'm not in the best playing shape like I used to be," Thornton said. "It's just fun to get up and down (the court) and play. I've aged quite rapidly, but the one thing that isn't gone is the jump shot."

— Adam Duvall (@AdamDuvall)

WHERE ARE THEY NOW is published each Monday. Recommend a subject for this column via email to sports@pjstar.com. Include "WATN" in the subject line.